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Bootle accident fears as bin cuts bite

RESIDENTS will have to drag their own rubbish one-and-a-half miles up the road to the nearest collection point, following changes to a council collection scheme.

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A number of homes in Bootle have been told they will no longer have their bins collected from their properties by Copeland Borough Council as part of spending cuts, despite assisted collections being made nearby.

Under the council’s agreed £120,000 waste collection savings, off-route properties will have their waste collected from the nearest roadside.

For the residents of Annaside, Kiskin and Hyton, this means taking their wheelie bins a mile-and-a-half up the road to the junction of Church Lane. But residents fear the large volume of bins, heavy traffic flow and narrow roads may lead to an increase in accidents.

“All it needs is for the wind to blow the bins over and someone to be speeding round the corner.”

David Cross, of High Kiskin Cottage, said: “They expect us to deliver 14 wheelie bins to the roadside between 7am and 8am.

“They’ve got to go down the road to pick up the assisted collections, so why not collect the rest?”

Residents have been notified that their new collection system will start on February 15, as the council looks to make waste collection “more efficient”.

Deryck Fell, of Annaside, said: “It doesn’t make environmental sense to have 14 homes running 14 vehicles up the road to drop their bins off.

“A central collection point would make much more sense. There is no room for bins where they are proposing to have it collected. You’ve got Eskmeals traffic, farm traffic and school buses going down that road.

“There have already been accidents; this will make it worse.”

Keith Parker, Copeland Borough Council’s head of neighbourhoods, said assisted collections were made separately and used smaller vehicles, meaning the other residents’ waste could not be collected at the same time.

He said: “We have had to make changes to our waste collection services as a direct result of the budget cuts we have received from government. Following a consultation exercise, councillors have determined that to make our service more efficient, we move to a lane-end collection system, as we are no longer able to afford to travel significant distances down lanes to collect people’s waste.

“We will always work with individuals to identify the most suitable alternative option. This is what we are currently doing with the residents at Bootle.’’